


Auferstehung

by Gabrielique (Sacchan90)



Category: Cloud Atlas (2012), Cloud Atlas - All Media Types, Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe, In The Flesh AU, M/M, Mention of Past Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, The Frobishery is full of young girls actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3731734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sacchan90/pseuds/Gabrielique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You kill yourself, taking care of every little detail, thinking that finally you’ll be at peace, but then you are back and they don’t have the decency to shoot you in the head and let you go back to your grave.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Auferstehung:</b> Resurrection, title of Mahler's second symphony</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> An _In The Flesh_ AU because the world needs it.  
>  And because apparently it's a good way to add angst to the angst.
> 
> Usual disclaimers applied: the characters belong to David Mitchell and not to me. I don't have a beta and english is still not my first language, so please take that in mind if you see any error.

They sent me back to England with enough Neurotriptyline to last the whole trip, and a recommendation to check in at the Norfolk Centre.  
There is no real medical reason for it since I’m allowed to travel from Belgium to England, it’s only a precaution to be sure I don’t escape at some point.  
  
If my first travel to Belgium was not the most pleasant, the travel to England is even worse: on the ship there aren’t a lot of PDS sufferers, and the sailors keep all of us locked away.  
Just to be sure.  
  
_“You can never know when a rotter is going to snap, kill you, and eat your brain.”_  
  
Not that I think that a sailor’s brain would be _that_ tasty, but I can’t really blame them for being  _humans_.  
  
The insults, with the occasional spitting in the face or at my feet, are the easiest part to endure. Nothing I didn’t already survive when I was alive.   
Change 'rotte'r with 'faggot', and it’s always the same old story. The same boring cacophony.  
Been there, done that.   
There is a worrying lack of creativity on the ship - that’s what bothers me.

  
I share my personal space with a young boy named Rafael, who worked on a ship when he was alive. We never talk about the burns that the rope left around his neck or the fear in his eyes everytime a sailor gets too close to us.  
  
You kill yourself, taking care of every little detail, thinking that finally you’ll be at peace, but then you are back and they don’t have the decency to shoot you in the head and let you go back to your grave.  
Instead they cure you, telling you that everything will be fine; and they send you back home thinking that nothing will make your family happier than to have you back alive and well.

At least ten times a day I hope the ship will sink in the sea and avoid me the awful torture to see Pater again.  
I actually wonders how my dear Pater reacted to the whole zombie apocalypse thing. Probably with a crucifix in a hand and a bible in the other, sending his accolite to purge the evil seed from this world.  
A shame I was in Belgium going around hungry for brains, and not home to see this wonder.

  
Predictably, the ship doesn’t sink and I found myself at Norfolk center, where they are not really happy to see me.  
They feel betrayed because the Belgium send them another rotter.  
For them I’m just another problem, nothing more.  
We all wish I could go back to Belgium, but nobody is going to be happy. Not with the new law that force all the PDS sufferers to go back to their native countries.

“Any family?” the guy at the reception ask me with a monotone voice that means he has been doing this for too long.  
  
“Yes.” I answer after a while. “Yes, I have family.”


	2. Sehr gemächlich. Nie eilen. (Very leisurely. Never rush.) part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which coming home is at the same time easier and harder than Robert thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes a lot of OCs, in this case, Robert's family.
> 
> Warning for a brief mention of past abuse.

Another trip, this time on a old bus that squeaks every five seconds or so.  
I should probably be touched that they provide a transportation service for those who have no family or have a family that doesn’t want to travel all the way to Norfolk center. Or, like me, for those who don’t want to call their family and tell them they are alive. Honestly, I don’t want to risk to give mother a heart-attack. And I don’t want to ruin the surprise.  
  
I should probably also ignore the fact that the guards -because there is no other definition for them- have guns.  
But there is nothing nice about this little trip and the guns make me nervous.  
No, not nervous; they make me itchy with trepidation.  
Just like last time I was near a gun.  
  
But apparently I still have some self-preservation instinct and, too soon, we arrive at our destination.  
The first thing I notice is how nothing changed; it’s the same house with the same little garden full of the same boring flowers, with the same letters we carved on a boring summer afternoon on the east side of the house.  
It seems fitting considering I didn’t change.  
  
There is no time to waste and too much papers to sign and I can’t really dwell on the past for too long; so I knock on the door of my childhood home with the hope that nobody will answer me and the guys with the guns will lock me up somewhere far, far away from this.  
When I’m almost sure I will be sentenced to an awful life in a cell under constant vigilance, a woman opens the door.  
She has long brown hair, slightly wavy, eyes blue as the ice and a frown on her hard face.  
My sister Elizabeth.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
So much for a warm welcome back home, I guess.  
  
“Need a place to stay.” I admit biting down the bile I’m tasting thinking that yes, I’m back home and _nothing_ changed while I was dead.  
  
“I’m sure you have a lot of better places to stay than here.”  
  
It would be true if I didn’t burn all the metaphorical bridges when I left for Belgium. “See those guys there? “ she looks behind me to the guys with the guns “They are not gonna just let me go and live my life. It’s the law: they have to be sure I’m under the supervision of someone, possibily a family member.”  
  
Our brief chat summoned someone at the door -another girl. If Liz took her hair -like me- from Pater, and her eyes from mother, my sister Catherine has our mother’s sand-blonde hair. Actually, Grandma’s hair, as mother always proudly told us.  
  
“Oh God, _Robert_.” she says, her brown eyes wide. If I’m correct, now she’s older than me -well, older than the age I was when I died.  
  
“Keep your voice down.” Elizabeth warns her.  
  
“Who’s at the door?”  
  
My sister Mary takes her place between our sisters.  
  
When I left England, she was an adolescent, and now I barely recognize the young woman in front of me.  
  
  
It’s the first time I realize that time has really passed while I was dead.  
“Hey...hi.”  
  
She looks like she just saw a ghost.  
  
“Cat, go search mom. Now.”  
  
Dear, dear Elizabeth, always the boss of us all since Adrian died. Of course Cat obeys and disappears inside the house, leaving me with Elizabeth looking positively pissed off and Mary at loss for words.  
  
Not that Elizabeth looked anything but pissed in her whole life, it’s just the way she is, perpetually unsatisfied with people’s action and reactions.  
  
A long of couple minutes later, Cat is back with our Mother in tow, her head high and a polite half smile on her face.  
  
She doesn’t look at me, but straight at my escort group, giving me time to notice her now grey hair and the lines on her tired face, and once she looked each and everyone of them she simply ask. “Gentlemen, shall we going inside? I’m sure there is a lot we need to talk about.”

 

* * *

  
  


In turns out there is really a lot to talk about, a lot of papers Mother has to sign in her pretty calligraphy and a lot of brochures she has to read in order to provide the best care of me.  
  
They tell her the basic stuff: I should take my medicine every twenty four hours, I should regularly visit a doctor to be sure I’m healthy and there are no complications, that there are people she can talk to in case she has doubts ect ect.   
  
I’m surprised nobody tells her I should keep seeing a psychologist considering how I died.  
  
To be honest I’m not planning to kill myself again in the near future. Well, unless the sojourn at the Frobishery doesn’t drive me completely mad, which could easily happen.  
  
When everything is signed and ready, Mother shakes hands and smiles and send everyone away with her best manners and a blessing. I used to hate it, Mother’s habit of saying _“God bless you”_ or _“Bless your soul”_ to everyone and somehow I still do, but I tend to consider it a bizarre thing she says. Better than think that she believes what she says.  
  
The front door closes and when Mother comes back all smiles are gone, replaced by a cold frown on her face. Now it feels like I’m home.  
  
She doesn’t speak immediately and I don’t know what to say because I have no idea how she will react - that was always the problem with mother. Even when father disowned me she barely said a word. I don’t know what to expect. Or what I want from her.  
  
“Elizabeth, Catherine, Mary, can you please leave us alone?”  
  
They do, even if Cat has to bring Mary away by her elbow, but Mother stays silent even when we are alone in the living room.  
  
There is no clear emotion on her face, maybe she still doesn’t know how to react to this whole thing. Maybe it’s just pure shock.  
  
“What do you need, Robert?”  
  
She doesn’t ask it with an annoyed voice, there isn’t an unspoke _“this time”_ at the end of the question. She’s genuinely asking me what I need right now and from her.  
She never asked such things to us, usually Mother would listen to our need and then simply nods, but she never came to us and directly asked, she waited for us to have enough courage to tell her.   
  
“I need…” I hesitate considering my options right now. I need to leave before Pater arrives, but realistically that’s not a plan. And I learned something from my last bright idea, after all. “I need a place to stay until I found a job and can find my own place.”  
  
Mother nods, her practical mind agreeing with me. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk with your father.”  
  
Her? Talking with Pater? On _my_ behalf?  
  
“He will not listen.” I say before I can stop myself.  
  
“I’ll make sure he will.” Mother is firm in her decision.   
  
What happened to the world while I was dead?  
  
She seems to read my thoughts because she places a hand on my cheeks and smiles tiredly. “Ah my boy, a lot changed.”

 

* * *

 

My room, where I’m supposed to basically hide until Pater is convinced that I can stay, is nothing like the way I left it.  
Because it’s not _my_ room anymore, it’s an empty room without furniture or traces of my existence.  
  
 _I’ve been erased,_ I think as I touch the cold wall. I hanged my first composition in that spot, like people hang photos of their holidays, but now it’s gone. What happened to it? Is still somewhere in the house? I can’t remember it anymore.  
  
Did they took everything out when I died, or when I left England? Did they wait for me to die, or they considered me dead anyway?  
I knew it that coming back was a mistake - I suddenly feel not only unwanted, but also a hindrance.  
  
The mattress on the bed is dusty, sign that nobody entered the room in a while and I wonder if they just locked it and throw the key away.  
I wish they really put that bullet in my head. There was a reason if I took my life, after all.  
  
I make myself comfortable on the bed and I stared at the same place I stared all my young life while planning a way to escape.  
I always hated the place.

“You’re lucky father is no home.” Elizabeth makes herself at home in my room without knocking. One would think that she learned her lesson after she found me one too many times doing some private stuff. And not always alone.  
  
“Indeed I am.”  
  
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Elizabeth asks.  
  
“I’m kinda dead. But I’m fine, for now.” I joke.  
  
“Coming here, I mean. Do you really think father will give you shelter or aid?”  
  
“No, of course. He kicked me out of her before I was a zombie, no way he’ll have me now.”  
  
Is a zombie son better than a sinful bisexual son?  
I don’t need that answer.  
  
“Then why are you here?”  
  
The way she sits on the mattress reminds me of the day Adrian announced he was joining the army. He had told Mother and Pater first, and then we all gathered in his room where he told us. Catherine and Mary were too young to understand fully, but not me and Elizabeth. I had thought his decision was foolish and even today I don’t understand it, but Elizabeth felt betrayed. They were the eldest, they had grow up together and he was leaving. He was leaving _her._  
She has been mad at him the way she was mad at me now, with the difference that now she is thirty and her emotions are more controlled and somehow more terrifying.  
  
“It’s until I find a job.” I assure her -and myself.  
  
“Another bright idea like gambling, I suppose.”  
  
“Shut up, Liz. I’ll find something. Something _legal_.”  
  
“Oh no wonder you’ll try.” she give me that sounding condescending. “But you are gonna fail. Let’s not pretend things will go different this time.”  
  
She doesn’t stay any longer, satisfied to have the last word of this conversation.  
  


* * *

 

Mother’s plan is to talk with Pater after dinner, in private without the girls, and I can almost pint-point the moment she drops the bomb on him because the house vibrates with his tyrannic voice.  
  
It doesn’t bring nice memories to the surface, that voice.   
His shouting is still too familiar and still stirs in me a fear that took me years to fight. I’m there, sitting on my bed, hoping he will not storm into my room just to beat some sense into me before throwing me out of the house.  
 _Again.  
_  
It takes me a lot of strength to stop myself from curling in a ball and cover my ears like I used to do when I was only ten.  
Pater, the pious man, has always been a beast with his family in the name of perfect discipline.  
  
How Mother can still be at his side it’s a mystery to me. I never understand her will to be a good christian and a wife to a man that is barely an acceptable christian and an awful husband.  
  
He have always insulted her and tonight is no exception.  
I was used to this once, but apparently I forgot how to ignore everything when I killed myself.  
  
And it should be easier when the anger is directed at you, you can deal with it; but I wonder how my sisters could live in a house like this when they never did anything wrong. Maybe that’s why Elizabeth despises me so much - if it wasn’t for me things around would be easier.  
Maybe that’s why they wanted to forget about me.  
  
Maybe they are happy without me as much as I was happy without them.  
  
 _A couple of days_ , I tell myself, a couple of days and I will be out of here again.  
Someone knocks at my door - I presume it’s Mary because she’s the only one who would do that in a moment like this-, but I don’t find in me the will to stand up and unlock the door.   
  
It takes Mother and Pater two hours to stop arguing, and another fifteen for the knock on my door.  
It’s not Mary this time, she doesn’t knock like she wants to break down the door.  
I’m not ready, I realize with every step closer to the door.  
Pater stares at me with the furrowed brow I remember too well. He’s angry as always and he needs a couple of moments to unclench his jaw enough to talk.  
  
“My wife believes that you are her son.” Pater stars, making sure I know exactly what’s his own opinion. “Personally, I believe that you are nothing an abominatio -”  
  
“Tell me something new; we established that in 2007.”  
  
At my interruption he flinches, but keeps talking like I didn’t open my mouth at all.  
“An abomination that wears a familiar face. Although it’s my duty as christian to have pity of your cursed soul, and pray for you.”  
Well, _that_ ’s new.  
  
I can’t really picture my father on his knees praying for my salvation. In my mind he’s always standing, his belt in his hand, ready to strike.  
  
“But,” because of course there is a but, “As a father I can’t let something like you stay here and put my daughters in danger.”  
  
 _His_ family, not mine. Pater always knew how to make me feel accepted and loved.  
  
“You have two weeks.”  
  
That said, he leaves without waiting for my reply. Why would he? What I have to say doesn’t matter -never mattered. He’s Pater - he orders and we obey.  
Mother waits a moment and gives me a tentative smile, then she follows Pater somewhere else.  
  
I know she did her best and I know that she couldn’t do more than that. Two weeks is a considerable time. For the first time in my existence I don’t blame her.  
  
 _Two weeks and I will be out of here._   
That’s a relief.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is just a prologue, nothing more than a tease for the real plot. That will explain why this is so short, so forgive me.  
> (also forgive me, but I needed to make that Rafael cameo.)
> 
> Despite being in the Frobismith tag, I want to warn you all that Sixsmith will not be present in the first chapters, so don't be disappointed for the next update.  
> I thought best to take time and explore Robert's relationship with his family and sisters.
> 
> If you want, you can visit me on tumblr @[drunkpylades](http://drunkpylades.tumblr.com) or you can try to leave me a prompt @[darkwings-darkwords](http://darkrwings-darkwords.tumblr.com)


End file.
